Class Introspector

The Introspector class provides a standard way for tools to learn about
the properties, events, and methods supported by a target Java Bean.

For each of those three kinds of information, the Introspector will
separately analyze the bean's class and superclasses looking for
either explicit or implicit information and use that information to
build a BeanInfo object that comprehensively describes the target bean.

For each class "Foo", explicit information may be available if there exists
a corresponding "FooBeanInfo" class that provides a non-null value when
queried for the information. We first look for the BeanInfo class by
taking the full package-qualified name of the target bean class and
appending "BeanInfo" to form a new class name. If this fails, then
we take the final classname component of this name, and look for that
class in each of the packages specified in the BeanInfo package search
path.

Thus for a class such as "sun.xyz.OurButton" we would first look for a
BeanInfo class called "sun.xyz.OurButtonBeanInfo" and if that failed we'd
look in each package in the BeanInfo search path for an OurButtonBeanInfo
class. With the default search path, this would mean looking for
"sun.beans.infos.OurButtonBeanInfo".

If a class provides explicit BeanInfo about itself then we add that to
the BeanInfo information we obtained from analyzing any derived classes,
but we regard the explicit information as being definitive for the current
class and its base classes, and do not proceed any further up the superclass
chain.

If we don't find explicit BeanInfo on a class, we use low-level
reflection to study the methods of the class and apply standard design
patterns to identify property accessors, event sources, or public
methods. We then proceed to analyze the class's superclass and add
in the information from it (and possibly on up the superclass chain).

getBeanInfo

Introspect on a Java bean and learn about all its properties, exposed
methods, and events, subject to some control flags.

If the BeanInfo class for a Java Bean has been previously Introspected
based on the same arguments then the BeanInfo class is retrieved
from the BeanInfo cache.

Parameters:

beanClass - The bean class to be analyzed.

flags - Flags to control the introspection.
If flags == USE_ALL_BEANINFO then we use all of the BeanInfo
classes we can discover.
If flags == IGNORE_IMMEDIATE_BEANINFO then we ignore any
BeanInfo associated with the specified beanClass.
If flags == IGNORE_ALL_BEANINFO then we ignore all BeanInfo
associated with the specified beanClass or any of its
parent classes.

decapitalize

Utility method to take a string and convert it to normal Java variable
name capitalization. This normally means converting the first
character from upper case to lower case, but in the (unusual) special
case when there is more than one character and both the first and
second characters are upper case, we leave it alone.

getBeanInfoSearchPath

Gets the list of package names that will be used for
finding BeanInfo classes.

Returns:

The array of package names that will be searched in
order to find BeanInfo classes. The default value
for this array is implementation-dependent; e.g.
Sun implementation initially sets to {"sun.beans.infos"}.

flushCaches

public static void flushCaches()

Flush all of the Introspector's internal caches. This method is
not normally required. It is normally only needed by advanced
tools that update existing "Class" objects in-place and need
to make the Introspector re-analyze existing Class objects.

flushFromCaches

Flush the Introspector's internal cached information for a given class.
This method is not normally required. It is normally only needed
by advanced tools that update existing "Class" objects in-place
and need to make the Introspector re-analyze an existing Class object.
Note that only the direct state associated with the target Class
object is flushed. We do not flush state for other Class objects
with the same name, nor do we flush state for any related Class
objects (such as subclasses), even though their state may include
information indirectly obtained from the target Class object.